Customer Reviews

The Singing of the Dead (Kate Shugak Mysteries)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Jack died over a year ago but Kate remains in shock as she still feels the pain of his death as if it happened yesterday. A former police officer and sometimes private detective Kate Shugak, a full-blooded Inuit, harbors her dead lover's teenage white son Johnny. The fourteen-year old young adult refuses to live in the lower forty-eight states or reside with his mother who hates Kate.

With another mouth to feed and potential future legal fees, Kate leaves Johnny on the homestead and accepts work as a bodyguard to Anne Gordaoff, a senatorial candidate. Anne has been receiving escalating threats that require her to hire Kate. While Kate protects her client, someone murders The candidate's son-in-law and a staffer leaving it up to Kate to unravel the truth before someone else is hurt.

The latest Shugak novel gives readers an early twentieth century Alaskan history lesson and how past events three generations ago relate to the present murders. The mystery is cleverly developed and the sexual tension between Kate and Trooper Jim is so thick the murder weapon cannot slice through it. That "non-relationship" bears future watching as Dana Stabenow continues to provide her audience with tales they enjoy reading.

Harriet Klausner

Terrific! That nicely sums up this latest entry in Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series. Stabenow, who was born and lives in Anchorage, provides her readers with an up-close and in-depth look at Alaskan life. And boy, is that life rugged and cold! Stabenow doesn't pull any punches as she describes everyday life in Alaska. People drink way too much. Marriages break up right and left. Just living day to day is difficult.

Kate Shugak fiercely loves her native Alaska. She lives simply, without many of the conveniences we consider necessary. It's a lonely life, but one that Kate wouldn't change for the world. The only thing she would change is to bring back her recently deceased lover, Jack. But life goes on, and Kate slowly recovers from her grief. Helping her is Jack's teen-aged son, Johnny, who loves Alaska as much as Kate does. Unfortunately, he has run away from his mother, which causes Kate legal and emotional problems with Johnny's mother.

As legal problems cost lots of money, Kate reluctantly accepts a job as security guard for state senator candidate Anne Gordaoff, who has been receiving threatening letters. Life on the campaign trail is hard, but not as hard as Kate's regular life (in my opinion). When first Anne's fundraiser/future son-in-law is murdered, followed shortly by the murder of another staff member, Kate digs into the past to identify the culprit.

In fact, it is the past that provided the most interesting parts of the book. The parallel story of the Dawson Darling, a good-time girl of the Alaskan Gold Rush period, is riveting reading.

Stabenow does an excellent job with her plot twists. There's lots of substance to THE SINGING OF THE DEAD, which makes it a satisfying read. Stabenow provides her reader with the necessary clues to identify the murderer along with Kate, although I must admit I didn't figure out "whodunit".

All in all, I think this is one of the best in the Kake Shugak series. If you haven't read any, I recommend you start with the first book and work your way up to this one, as each book builds on the previous ones.

Stabenow manages to entertain the reader with two very good stories in this book. Kate Shugak is employed as security to a woman who is campaigning for a Park Senate seat. About 100 years ago, a "working girl" falls in love and marries the man who was the highest bidder when she auctioned herself to the men of Dawson. Stabenow takes us back and forth between these two stories and it becomes clear that a connection will be made. The pace never falters and the characters, as always, are complete in every detail. In one part of the book, DS writes about Kate's love of books. Reading for fun. Preferring a book to television. The inability to pass a bookstore without going in. This really struck a chord with me. I'm just guessing here, but I think Stabenow has endowed Kate with her own love of books. Maybe that is why she is able to tell such good tales. She understands readers because she is one herself. I truely appreciate her efforts, as one reader to another. Oh, and what about the glove? Where have I heard about a glove found at the scene of a crime before? Hummmmm.

This is the 11th outing for Kate Shugak, former Anchorage police officer and now private investigator in the Park in the Alaskan bush. The series took an unexpected turn in book 9, and with the last two entries, author Dana Stabenow has kept us on edge wondering if Shugak would survive.

In this book, Shugak returns to her homestead in the Park for the first time in months. She is promptly offered a job as a political candidate's protection after the candidate, a Native Alaskan, begins receiving threatening letters. Shugak, like most police officers, believes that the writer of the letters will go no further than the written word. But when one of the candidate's staff turns up dead, Shugak is forced to reevaluate her position. From that point, the book goes into high gear!

The characters, especially the ones we've grown to know over the years, are well-drawn and continue to grow and change. Stabenow gives us some history of Alaska, this time involving a prostitute of the Klondike era. She keeps you guessing about who did the foul deed although she is such a skillful writer that you find yourself hoping it's one of the campaign staff whom you come to love to hate. Stabenow's writing remains outstanding so much so that you can feel autumn slipping away with each turn of the page - in the back of your head you'll begin to wonder where you can lay your hands on a sweater - even if you're in 90 degree weather.

There is nothing wrong with this book except that it seemed a tad tired, even though I never met a Kate Shugak book I didn't like.

In this outing, Kate is hired (very reluctantly on her part) to act as security guard for a political candidate, Anne Gordaoff. Like all politicians, Anne is quick with the glib tongue and the familiar handshake, and Kate finds it hard to like her, even though on the surface, her platform seems sound. What's worse for Kate is the folderol that goes with any campaign, and stalwart native Kate is truly a fish out of water--until the murders start.

Somebody is dogging the candidate's heels, and victims are having a nasty way of turning up when least expected. Kate tries to solve the mystery, joined by her would-be lover Jim Chopin (Chopper Jim) and other regulars--including, of course, half-wolf, half wonderdog Mutt.

What saves the plot from being entirely tired is the parallel story that takes place early in the century--that of a dancehall hostess/prostitute in the wild and woolly Alaskan gold rush. Many authors before Stabenow have used this double plot trick to very good effect, and it works for her too, except that the tie-in between the prostitute Angel and the candidate Anne is very weak and very confusing.

So be it...worth reading for diehard Shugak fans. On to the next!

In the 11th. book of the Kate Shugak series, Dana Stabenow weaves 2 parallel stories into an interesting whole. The story with the current setting tells of Kate's new job as a security guard for Anne Gordaoff, a candidate for state senator from Kate's district. During the course of the campaign, the candidate's future son-in-law is murdered. This brings a new urgency to Kate's job and causes her to align with sometime friend and lover Jim Chopin to solve the case. When another body appears, the campaign workers' concerns deepen. The parallel story is told at the turn of the 20th. century with its central character being a "good time girl" during the Gold Rush days. She earns her living in the only way she knows how and supports her son through hardships and associations with abusive men. Her death has never been solved, but Kate connects it to her current case and discovers both killers at once. This is a good read and gives Stabenow's usual insider's view on Alaska.

The Singing Of The Dead: A Kate Shugak Novel by Dana Stabenow is a chilling political murder mystery. The strong-willed and firm-minded heroine Kate Shugak decides to work security for a Native American woman running for state senator. But the bizarre of the campaign's staff researcher pulls Kate Shugak into a murderous web stretching back ninety years, and pits her against a modern-day killer with a cold and cruel irreverence for human life. Suspenseful and occasionally down-right mesmerizing listening, this complete and unabridged audiobook edition of The Singing Of The Dead is very ably narrated by Marguerite Gavin and strongly recommended for community library audiobook collections.

If I could carry a tune...

I LOVE Dana Stabenow. I fell upon her (as an author) by accident and have not regretted a book since. I savored Hunter's Moon (Number 9) but felt shaken by the end. I nearly gave up. While I enjoyed the next book, I still hadn't come back to make camp with Kate... I am back with Singing of the Dead.

Keep up the good work, Dana!

I like Stabenow's writing. She writes well; concise, not-too-flowery but able to give insights into the Alaska that she so obviously lovers. To us, those who live below the Canadian-line, who have been given various names by those who dare to live in Alaska, it seems almost a mystical place. We are intrigued by those who choose to live in such a harsh environment, and wonder how they handle such hardships as when you don't see much of the sun for nearly six months or more. Stabenow gives a good amount of history in this book into the people who populated Alaska originally during the gold rushes at the turn of the 19th century.

I was not surprised at the women who chose to go to that harsh environment. Like I said, from reading histories of Australia, it seems the two areas have a lot in common with the only difference is that for the most part the women who went to Alaska went there by choice. In the beginning, England shipped its annoying criminal class (read that as poor) of women to the harsh colony of Australia. So a good many people in that country today who are Natives are people who married (or not) from between real criminals and women who were forced to do the only thing they could to survive and that meant selling their bodies.

Freedom of choice was the big difference here, yet it seems ironic that most AUssies I know are proud of their backgrounds. I guess if you are running for politics you would be a little hesitant to advertise the fact that one of your grandmothers were free with her favors...but when most of your constituency can same thing I would think it would be unwise to be ashamed of your background. Anyone who does geneaology can tell you that everyone has a questionable person somewhere in their families...mine has a pirate, Captain Kidd, who was probably not a pirate...but that's another story.

Kate Shugak has undergone a loss since I last read about her, so now I need to catch up on what happened to her 'soul mate', Jack. She's trying to recover from a deep loss and make a living at the same time. I enjoy reading about her. This is the type of woman I would like to have been; a little more brave and I would have enjoyed the type of work she does. But in the real world, such people are few.

Shugak is working for a politician and the research is turning up more than anybody was really rooting for. This leads to murder, and of course, murder leads to Shugak. Enough said...

Karen SAdler

Another good weekend spent in Alaska with long-time friends. I just hope that Stabenow never stops writing this wonderful series.